Shutt Down

what happens

Aaron, the staff, and the patients are caught in the crossfire when Antoine Metcalf, a gangbanger and career criminal, follows his latest victim into the E.R. to finish off the job he started, and sprays a room with automatic gunfire before hospital security shoots him down; Karen joins the staff, and successfully teams with Paula to remove hematomas that are preventing Marcus Lavelle from walking, but the trauma of witnessing his mother's being injured in the E.R. shooting leaves the little boy afflicted with hysterical paralysis and still unable to move although the surgery has left him physically fine; reluctantly operating on the shooter, Aaron jokes about how easy and perhaps appropriate it might be to cause Metcalf's death through a surgical hiccup, a remark which comes back to haunt him later when Metcalf dies soon after surgery and his family sues Aaron and the hospital for failure to provide adequate care; Arthur engages in a little ex parte communication to put in a good word

who made it

directed

Steve Miner, Michael Nankin

guest cast

Billed for this episode only — the turn people remember an episode for.

• Allen Garfield as Raymond Kadalski
• Margaret Colin as Karen Antonovich
• Richard Brooks as Henry Lavelle
• Cynthia Martells as April Lavelle
• Charlayne Woodard as Gina Wilkes
• Stephen Elliott as Harold Aldrich
• Sherman Augustus as Paramedic
• BBari K. Willerford as Orderly